How and why refugees might change their ICT behaviour when migrating to Europe?

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have become part of everyone's’ lives and imagining a life without them seems almost impossible. Mobile phones and social media platforms, which are of great importance in this thesis, are used for contacting friends and families, gathering news but also as a tool for organizing a getaway. Therefore this bachelor thesis aims to answer the research question “How and why refugees might change their ICT behaviour when migrating to Europe?”. Until now, this questions has not been answered in the literature. Previous studies only focussed on the ICT use at the specific location of migrants and refugees (in their home countries, en route or in their host societies), examined the impact on ICT on social integration or treated the media discourse about refugees, for example, on Facebook. Contributing to this discourse, the author of this thesis conducted interviews with six refugees of different nationalities in two refugee centers in Düsseldorf, Germany, asking them about their individual ICT behaviour in their countries of origin, en route and in Germany. Based on the method of discourse analysis, the interviews reveal that the mobile phone as well as social media platforms are of great importance for refugees as they enable them to take part in their loved ones lives despite the geographical distances. On the other hand refugees did not changed their ICT behaviour now living in Germany compared to their home country, the purpose, however, did changed.